Tradition as a living vision: Hans-Georg Hadamer

Abstract

In this paper the author treats three important questions of Hermeunetic philosophy.Firstly, the character and importance of tradition as the bearer of the long experience of interacting with one’s world, with other persons and with God (it is constituted not only of chronological facts, but of insights regarding human perfection which have been forged in the human person’s concrete striving to live with dignity). Secondly, the implications for the content of tradition of the continually unfolding circumstances of historical development (these do not merely extend or repeat what went before, but constitute an emerging manifestation of the dynamic character of the classical vision articulated in the epics, in law and in political movements). Thirdly, hermeneutics (how can the tradition be understood in its significance for present action?).